Selectors drive Dravid to declare ODI innings closed
Deft stroke
What bowlers from across the world couldn’t do for more than 15 years, India’s national selectors managed in one fell swoop as they drove Rahul Dravid into announcing his retirement from one-day international and Twenty20 cricket at the end of India’s ongoing England tour.
K Srikkanth and his myopic panel had sprung a massive surprise on Saturday afternoon by hauling the 38-year-old out of limited-overs wilderness and naming him in the 16-man squad for the five-match series in England next month.
Dravid’s last one-dayer had been in the Champions Trophy in South Africa in September 2009, and it was understandable that even the right-hander had been caught unawares by the selectors.
“I was a little surprised to be picked in the one-day squad,” he admitted in Northampton. “At the end of this England series, I would like to announce my retirement from one-day international and Twenty20 cricket, and I would like to focus my energies on Test cricket.”
Given how much of a stickler for form he is, Dravid will not admit to embarrassment in public, but there is no denying that he wouldn’t have been too thrilled at not knowing, at this late stage of his career, whether he is coming or going.
His recall to the one-day team in mid-2009 had come under similar circumstances—India’s younger crop of batsmen had been found out by the bouncing ball in the World T20 in England—and Dravid’s services were requisitioned with the Champions Trophy in mind.
Despite a more than passable outing in that tournament, Dravid was dumped without so much as a “thank you” when the team returned home after early elimination. Between then and now, India have had a stirring run in one-day cricket culminating in the World Cup triumph, but the travails of the young—and not so young—turks in the two Tests thus far has necessitated another SOS to the man who doesn’t know how to say “No.”
Despite 339 one-dayers and 10,765 runs, there was no guarantee Dravid would have been accorded the same privilege upon return to batting-friendly home conditions. Reading the writing on the wall—pun unintended—the man with oodles of class decided enough’s enough. And rightly so, too.
